Have you ever stood on the edge of a lake and watched the patterns that waves make as they crisscross each other? If you watch long enough, the different patterns begin to sort themselves out in your mind and you see the sources of the waves as well as their reflections from the shore. Waves are unique, they can pass through each other, amplify each other, or even cancel each other out.

Waves are all around us in the form of light, sound, infrared, and countless other bands of unlabeled spectral energy. Science and technology take great leaps when we identify, label, and manipulate a previously untapped frequency spectrum. Think about how X-Rays and ultrasound have transformed western medicine.

Holistic medicine makes use of both light and sound energies to enhance mind, body, and spirit. Energy medicine is at the heart of both homeopathy and acupuncture. Despite all of the advances in vibrational medicine, we live in a world where the predominant mainstream medical model is based on particles (atoms) not waves (energies). Take a prescribed measured dosage of a drug and you are likely to exhibit known healing effects. Take the same prescribed dosage of a sugar pill and quite often you will also exhibit the expected healing effects. The placebo effect is so powerful that drug-makers now struggle to “beat” the placebo in drug trials—you see it’s not that the drug doesn’t work well enough—it’s that the sugar pill works too well!

When holistic medical approaches discover a healing remedy, medical authorities often make it known that they don’t approve. Common sense tells us that taking and mixing pharmaceutical drugs is best done under a doctor’s supervision. However, ordinary lifestyle choices like how to exercise and how many calories to consume are also being corralled by the medical establishment, who feel confident to tell you that it is dangerous to live on a 500-calorie diet without doctor supervision! There may be dangerous habits, but with obesity at an all-time high, any movement towards eating less should be applauded, not criticized.

I hope you can learn to cut through the misinformation and use your own intuition to find holistic approaches and practitioners that will guide and support you in your lifestyle choices.

photo: Waves made by the wings of a bee in a lake.
Used under Creative Commons from Bogdan Giu?c? in Bucharest, 2006.